Transformative Assessment by W James Popham

Transformative Assessment by W James Popham

Testing expert W. James Popham cuts through the jargon and the hype to provide the definitive nuts-and-bolts introduction to formative assessment, a process with the power to completely transform teaching and learning.

In his inimitable style, Popham explains the research supporting formative assessment's effectiveness and why familiarity with this research is the key to preserving both teacher sanity and district funds. You'll find step-by-step guidance on how to build frameworks for formative assessment and how to carry out each of the process's four levels: teachers' instructional adjustments, students' learning tactic adjustments, a classroom climate shift, and schoolwide implementation.

This book is the place to start for educators considering formative assessment, curious about why their school system is embracing formative assessment, or wondering why the formative assessments they're using now aren't producing the desired results. Here, you'll learn what formative assessment is and isn't, what it can do and what it can't, and the practical way to reap its very real rewards: better teaching and better learning.

James Popham, a former test developer and professor emeritus at the University of California at Los Angeles, is a nationally recognized authority on educational testing. He taught prospective teachers instructional methods courses at UCLA for 30 years, as well as master's and doctorate candidates evaluation and measurement courses. Several prestigious teaching prizes have been bestowed upon him. In January 2000, he was named one of UCLA's top twenty professors of the twentieth century. Dr. Popham has published 20 books, 180 journal articles, 50 research reports, and 150 papers in professional journals.

He has served as the president of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in the past. He was also the founding editor of AERA's quarterly publication Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. On educational testing, he now consults with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and various state boards of education.